Anti-gay extremists in Maine have a new talking point. In their battle against a marriage equality ballot initiative, they’re asking voters to reject “sodomy based marriage.”

Interesting. The term opens up all kinds of questions. My dictionary defines sodomy as “anal or oral copulation with a member of the same or opposite sex; also: copulation with an animal.”

So, we’re not sure if they’re against only marriage between same-sex couples – or all marriages where “sodomy” is practiced. And does their opposition apply only to marriages that are “based” on sodomy? Or do they include marriages where sodomy is merely incidental? We’re pretty sure they don’t mean to include sex with, say, chipmunks, though we’re almost positive they’d also be opposed to that.

It’s the work of Mike Heath and Paul Madore, founders of the new “No Special Rights” PAC. On Monday, the start of Pride Week at the University of Maine, the group distributed a “truth pledge” that includes 11 items that signers promise to do. No. 1 is “vote NO on sodomy based marriage.”

It also asks signers to avoid using the terms “same sex or gay marriage” and to inform their friends and neighbors that the term “same sex marriage” contains two contradictory terms and is therefore “illogical, false, and absurd.”

Say what?

Oh, and there’s this: “Oppose the hellish doctrine that two parents of the same sex make better parents than parents of the opposite sex, an evil doctrine which is now being advanced by the homosexual rights movement.”

Funny, haven’t heard anything about that being advanced.

And then there’s the old chestnut: “homosexual rights are really an attack on the religious freedom of all Christian men and women,” with an added “especially those who are truly Christian and oppose special rights for homosexuals.” Signers of the pledge are supposed to oppose “homosexual indoctrination” in school curricula and pray to deliver the state and country from “this attack by demonic forces.”

Demonic forces? Really?

Oh, wait. Heath said two weeks ago on his blog that the “gay movement” is “rooted in sorcery and it is a child of the devil, and an enemy of everything that is right.” So basically, more of the same, only this time with the power of the pledge.

Don’t be too surprised. Heath has a long history of outrageous and inflammatory statements about LGBT people. A former board chairman of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, Heath also had a long career with Maine’s Christian Civic League (later the Maine Family Policy Council), including the directorship, until his resignation in 2009 amid rumors that he was shunted aside because of his extreme anti-gay rhetoric. That same year, he had called for the re-criminalization of sodomy, the repeal of domestic partnership laws, and the removal of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” from the Maine Human Rights Act and the Maine Civil Rights Act. He has referred to homosexuality as a sickness, claimed that the “tyranny of ‘gay’ ideology” has silenced the church in Portland, and that it’s “only a matter of time before the cancer spreads throughout Maine.”

Strangely, he announced in April 2010 that he was running for governor and then dropped out the very next day. That was two months after the American Family Association granted Heath permission to start an affiliate, the American Family Association of New England. Doesn’t look like that worked out, either, because the AFA’s current web list of state affiliates does not include AFA-NE.

Madore headed up the Maine Grassroots Coalition and reportedly was responsible for bringing AFTAH leader Peter LaBarbera and MassResistance leader Brian Camenker to the state in 2009 during the bruising referendum battle that ultimately repealed marriage equality. He and the Coalition were disavowed by Stand for Marriage Maine, the official campaign to repeal the law. Just last week, in a press release about the launching of the “No Special Rights” PAC, Madore said, “Homosexuals have absolutely nothing good to contribute to family life.” To really hammer home his point, he added that a relationship between a same-sex couple is a “sterile union … and has nothing good to contribute to marriage or family life – absolutely nothing.”

Gay people don’t have gay babies. Straight people do. Haven’t they figured that out yet?

Reynardine

Erika,

We can’t talk about LXIX or XCIX.

Erika

JES, actually I suspect that they do understand and want to supress homosexuals because they have been unsuccessful at convincing their nice Christian husbands or wives to commit acts of sodomy with them and are jealous because they believe that homosexuals are actually getting it.

JES

All this proves is that these folks haven’t the faintest idea what the term “sodomy” actually covers. In fact, I’ll be most of them have practiced some form of sodomy at some time in their lives.

Tobias A. Weissman

Hetereosexual, or Homosexual, Gay Marriages, or Hetereosexual Marriages, what is every body getting excited about? If everyone is happy, that’s all that’s necessary. Ellen Degenerous pointed out when she was interviewed, that her whole family was Hetereosexual except she. She wasn’t influenced, neither will homosexual influence their children. Also may I point out that men marring men, or women marring women can’t produce children. What a blessing, since the world is so over populated. Gay people could do wonders by adopting those children.

Reynardine

Really not, especially when they have a penicillin-resistant strain of gomorrahy.

Erika

CM, because nobody enjoys gomorrahy ;)

CM

Maybe this is an opportunity to get an answer to a question I’ve wondered about for years:

If sodomy is what the citizens of Sodom were doing that incited God’s wrath, what was going on in Gomorrah? And why does no one condemn or ban gomorrahy?

Miguel

SHHHH! You’re not supposed to tell anyone about the sorcery in the gay clubs! That’s the best part of being gay!

Now they’ll all want to go into the gay clubs. And it just won’t be the same.

RLavigueur

More than anything else, this shows the serious disconnect with reality that these anti-gay groups are operating under. The fact that they actually believe this kind of rhetoric will help their cause attract support is hilarious.

As more and more Americans know actual real gay people, it’s become less effective to paint us as demonic monsters and more effective to advance separate but equal legislation where the anti-gay side can claim to have nothing against LGBTs while still appealing to the discomfort that many still harbour.

If Maine’s anti same-sex marriage campaigners actually followed these fools advice, they’d go a long way toward ensuring that voters supported same-sex marriage in the polls.

Matthew

Sometimes a society has to curtail it’s members’ rights for the greater good, to protect itself. Saving America from demonic possession must be one of those instances. I for one am delighted to dump the Bill of Rights if it will keep the demons out.

TheSapient

I was planning to say something about the holes (craters) in their thought process. But then they called gay people witches, and saved me alot of effort.

DrMJG

I do enjoy it when either such groups expose the religious construct of their legislation OR simply show they have not fully though through their proposals from a basic standpoint of writing!

Still, too many will support this drive simply because they feel it is the duty of legislation to create and hold some citizens as second class simply to justify their religious codes.

Reynardine

I guess they’ll just have to pass a law saying every publication has to skip page LXIX. Let’s not even think about chapters.

Erika

If “No Special Rights” is really against special rights, how come they are not protesting agaisnt the substantial legal advantages provided to hetereosexual couples through marriage but instead are protesting against giving equal rights to homosexual couples?

Reynardine

By that logic, everyone has to prove their fertility before being allowed to marry. Me, I think people with the last name of Heath shouldn’t be allowed to breed, unless they can prove they’re not related to this guy or Sara Heath Palin.